First day (5th Nov):
- Met at the airport at around 1030pm
(i reached at 9.30pm, cos they said meet at 10pm originally!)
- Marrianne came too! thanks for the sweets!
- flight number SQ656
- Sat between Eleanor and Gwen in the plane
- was already 1.15am then
- decided to watch High School Musical 2 instead of sleeping. but it was so draggy, i switched to playing Dr Mario, then fell asleep. haha :D .
That's eleanor, me and gwen during breakfast at 5am. we were like half-asleep Z_z The 3 of us only slept from 3.30am-5! 0_o
Second Day (6th Nov):
- landed at Fukuoka
- Was greeted at the arrival hall by yuri-san
- Boarded this really special and pretty bus.. it's like a double decker, just that the lower deck is for the driver and our luggages, and the passengers sat in the upper deck. it has a mini chandeliar in the upper deck too! so cool can.
- proceeded to the Minamata Memorial (4 hour journey)
- on the way there, we had our lunch the japanese style--in lunch boxes!
I only managed to finish 7 out of the 9 boxes! (not bad le!) super full after that. bleargh.
- dozed off in the bus. hurhur. chi bao jiu shui.
- Reached the memorial, and we had a lecture =(
- oh yes, all our lectures were in Japanese language, so we had Yuri as our translater
- Went to the RWB centre after that to see how human waste can be recycled =/ and purifcation of water. it was quite stinky. though the guy claimed it's not. hahah
- Had a lecture about those processed human-waste-turned-fertilizers...and i dozed off, when im sitting right in front of the techers. haha.
- Headed for Minamata Museum and had this talk by an old man, whose family (including himself) was a victim to the minamata disease. I dozed off again :( it's not that his story was not interesting..it was! it's just that the translater's voice was monotone, and sounded like a lullaby to me then.
- took the bus for another 2hours to the winery 'cos we were supposed to meet our host family (Shinchi family)
This is a pic of us (me, gwen, eleanor and chai) and them(KZ and shizuko)! they're a sweet old couple =) We had communication problem, but luckily they'd got a jap-eng dictionary, and a eng-jap dictionary. so we just point point point to those words we wanna say to them, and they just point back. hahah!
Third Day (7th Nov):
- woke up slightly later than we were supposed to, 'cos none of us were willing to drag ourselves out of bed at 7.30am. so we only woke up in shock at 7.45am.
- washed up, then greeted the hosts and had breakfast at around 8
- cut apples (ding-go!), skinned persimmons and dried them in the sun.
- after which, we went to pack flowers for sale at the host's shop.
that's me and the granny! she's very small and cute! haha
- and then, we went to have ice cream! the scenary there was B.E.A.U.T.I.F.U.L.
- went back to the host's house after that...and they didnt want us to help out anymore cos they wanted us to go out and look around
- so we saw their dog, beng!
i think beng lost her voice, cos her bark was really high-pitched and sounded like 'ello'. HAHAHA.
then KZ brought us to see his koi fishes!
- had spaghetti for lunch
- it was time to leave them to meet the other students, so Shizuko drove our luggage to the meeting point, while KZ and us walked there. felt so sad then.
- Had a "forest and water" lecture after that, followed by a lecture on tea.
- tasted their green tea..it was bitter and tea-like (now i know Pokka added so many ladles of sugar to their bottles of green tea!!!!!)
that's a random picture of chai and i. i looked so fierce! but actually, i was just showing her a cut on my thumb. it is the angle that made me looked like this!
- went to the winery after that to taste their wine. (jiayin, fermentors are humongous! hahahahhaaa) eleanor drank too but vommited a little after that 'cos she doesnt really drink wine, but still did so
- proceeeded to the cherrysalmon fishfarm (i wasn't really listening to the person there...)
- on the journey, shizuko and the granny waved to us when we past their house :) so heart-warming =)
- checked in at Takachiho Minshuku Chigi inn. Our (gwen, eleanor, chai, me) room is called the TOTORI room :)
- had dinner :) and the 4 of us were like barter-trading. i had most of chai's tofus and mushrooms, gwen ate all of our soyabean yogurt like dessert except eleanor's . eleanor's dessert was exceptionally sour and it sort of curdled (due to the heat from the pit in front of us?), i ate gwen's/eleanor's big red beans, chai ate our pickles etc etc. HAHAHA.
- Went for ONSEN (hotspring) after that 0_o
it was an experience...but i wasn't very prepared for it, since i only decided to go for it like 15 minutes before. urm....shant elaborate much. hahahs.
- went back to our room after that and decided to take pictures. HAHA. we spent 45minutes taking pics lah!
Forth Day (8th Nov):
- had breakfast
- proceeded to takachiho high school :) we were welcomed by the students there in the hall..but because we had to keep changing from our shoes to their slippers, it took us quite a while to enter the hall..so the students were like clapping non-stop for perhaps..5minutes? hahha.
- the students sang their school song, and we sang ours too, since we were requested to do so :/ and yeah..we sang it a little different from the normal way..we had different pitches and tempo. HAHA.
- the school principal, school president and one of us (melody) made speeches.
- the school president was super funny. He was like "let us now invite a representative to talk." so we clapped and glanced around to look for that representative. and then, the school president stood up and talked again -_- no wonder, he's that representative. HAHAHA!
- watched their traditional dance -Kagura dance
- then we followed the students back to their classes
- i was seated with 2 guys and a girl....and they are very shy and quiet. so in the end, i had to keep asking them questions, including random ones like "so, what's your favourite colour/animal/movies/songs" etc. their school's same age with ours! 90 years old :)
- proceeded to have Japanese calligraphy painting after that. i was with Chai and Maki.
- Had lunch after that
- Chai and i were like "eh..where to go, who should we sit with huh". and we couldn't make up our mind on which jap student we should sit with. so we decided to be the 'left-overs'. hahaha. in the end, a group of 4 guys invited us to sit with them
- we spent our time talking more than we should spend on eating. hahaha. talked about number of hours spent on studying, jap cartoons (dragon-ball, totoro etc), movies, teachers etc. when they mentioned dragonball, chai thought they were referring to doeramon, and we were discussing among ourselves which one they are actually referring to, till the best boy asked if we had any problem. hahaha. overall, the 4 guys are great and i really enjoyed talking to them.
- went for sight-seeing at Takachiho-Kyo. the waterfalls were breath-taking.
- had paper-cutting session
- KENDO lessons! kendo lessons were fun..we had to wear this heavy gear and try to attack your opponent with a stick at their heads(meng), throats (su-ki???), stomachs(don) and arms (kotec). it was rather scary watching the students play...'cos they had to run and hold their stick up, then scream as they chiong towards their ooponent. goodness..the girls' screaming were..deafening. eeeyer. of course i didnt scream when i played..i can't. HAHAHA! my partner (student instructor) is called takashi. i couldnt recognise him at first, 'cos he only coached me when he was geared. so after the session, i was looking around and going "sorry, but who's my partner?", till he came forward. bleargh. i was so embarrassed.
- went back to the inn
- watched the Kagura show, not bad. but the ending was quite sick. it was about this happy couple. eew. they were doing the actions of er-hem. and after er-hem-ing, the guy's ___ even e_r_cted. shall not elaborate about the show....
- went back to the inn, bathed, talked to lynette in our room till 12.30am.
